Minor peeves...

I am sure that there was a struggle between the engineering side of the house and the marketing side of the house on this issue. Market differentiation is a big deal in all products, and none more than automobiles. The question of how far down to allow the battery charge to go is also the question of what EV range you can claim for the car. Making it more like a Prius reduces the differentiation and makes it more likely that a buyer will choose the Prius.

I would like to see an settable option on the point at which the car automatically switches from EV to HV. Right now that's set to "two bars" which is so low that the battery is not an effective source of motive power. If you're dead set on harvesting the last few electrons of battery charge, you can set it low or override the automatic switch. If you want to avoid the angry bees at the cost of a few miles of EV range, you can set it higher. Yes, we can watch the charge level and manually switch to HV when it drops to our personal threshold, but it would be nice if the car would do that for us.

 

I was just at a public charger and a lady pulled in with a Clarity; she finished setting up the charge and closed the door and heard the now all-too-familiar crazy beeps and she instinctively open and shut the door and it was happy again. Nice to know I'm not the only one. Just thought I'd throw in another data point...

It's almost like a pet dog who barks when you go to leave the house, and you go back to pet him for a second and then his tail wags.

 

I'm about to get sufficiently annoyed at this to turn off the auto-lock.

 

I agree about the release button being hard to get to and agree that it’s especially hard for those of us who have the seat cranked all the way up. That just makes the buckle even lower in relation to the seat.
I have found a solution that works well for me. It’s a seat belt extender with no belt material attached. It’s just a buckle with the male part directly attached so it doesn’t flop around or stuck up too much. It’s only 3” long.
Also, you have to be careful not to buy the cheap ones; after all your life is riding on this. I found just the ticket for $20 and it has all the certifications.

• E4 Certified
• manufactured in a US DOT-registered factory that is
• in compliance with ISO/TS 16949:2009 for Manufacturing of Seat Belt Assembly and Components
• manufactured to exceed international break strength test requirements for three-point seat belts.

Here’s the link:
https://www.seatbeltextenderpros.com/honda-clarity-seat-belt-extender/
Here are the pix:

 

Update on the seat extender:
It’s working great but it took several days to retrain my self not to reach down past it and push the harder to reach OEM button. Kind of like the couple of weeks it took me to quit reaching for a gear shift knob. LOL!

It is making life easier, however there is has created one “problem” I didn’t anticipate. The fasten your seat belt warnings no longer work. So you must be diligent and responsible on your own to buckle up. Some won’t mind, some may welcome relief from “b@&#*ing Betty”, and some may decide it’s a deal breaker. Just thought I’d mention this so you’ll know before you consider buying this.

I’m keeping it because I always buckle up. Didn’t use to until I worked in an ER and that experience was enough to mske a convert out of me. I quickly noticed that those wearing seat belts usually walked out of the ER with bruises and contusions, and those that didn’t went to a floor bed, surgery, or the morgue.

 

Thanks @KentuckyKen ! I just ordered the 3" rigid extender because I raise the seat up to max height and had the same issue!

There is 10% off code you can use online to get $2 off: PRO10

See screenshot below of the order that included the discount.